Today’s post is by a guest poster, my good friend Heather Swanson. Heather works for the University of Alaska and in Alaska, they have earthquakes constantly. So, learning from someone who lives up there is a pretty good idea because they have had a ton of experience.
Mmmmm…. Coffee… ok – what’s on the agenda for today? I open up my calendar and email program. I hear my boss in the background on her conference call. Our student worker, who is deaf, walks by and signs good morning to me and asks me a question and we chat for a moment – their graceful signing is like a dance. I love our conversations. It is just the three of us in the office in the quiet, cold, morning. I go back to my emails and a few moments later, there is a low rumble, I look up, thinking it must be one of facility’s trucks rumbling by. The sound increases. Suddenly there is a loud BOOM! as the ground begins to shake and roll. I am nauseous from the rolling of the ground as I stumble towards my door. I hear big people words coming from my boss’ office and them yelling at the participants that it’s an earthquake and for me to take cover. They are asking if I can see our student worker. I look around – I cannot. Wait! I see a flash of red and blue moving in the reflection of the glass door. They’re safe – at least for the moment.
CRASH! BOOM! BANG! RUMBLErumbLEEEEE!!!! CraCCCCKKKKKK!!!
Filing cabinets are falling over… The low bookshelf behind me bounces into my freshly painted wall before falling over. I am barely able to stand in the doorway even while holding the frame. When is it going to stop? Suddenly it does. There is an eerie silence. I hear rustling coming from my boss’s office. (I later find out that my boss had dove under their desk and was holding on for dear life as it bounced across the floor – stopping only when a low cabinet fell on it.)They come flying down the hallway to my office to check on me. My student worker flies in from the opposite direction – their hands going a mile a minute “Are you ok? What about Boss? What happened? What do we do now?” Suddenly, there’s another rumble and the floor rolls and lurches – we can see it moving like a wave. We clutch each other as we try to fit all three of us in the doorway. My student worker points, terrified, at the wall in front of us. It is splitting in half as the force of the quake takes one side one way and the other side the other and twisting it in the process. With each twist – we can see through the walls into the room behind it. Every glimpse shows a different scene – computers flying through the air… lamps falling and shattering… chairs flipped over… Then silence. The three of us look around – I’m sure that my face was just as shocked as theirs.
Our first thoughts go to our loved ones? Are they ok? Are they safe? Texting quickly so as not to take up bandwidth on the cell towers, we text our kids, our parents, our partners. Are you ok? Are you safe? Where are you? A deep voice calls out to check on us through the clouds of dust – Are you ok? You need to leave the building now! We don’t know if it’s safe! Get out! Quickly grabbing our coats – it’s too cold to be outside without them – we step over debris to get out… My boss tells us to hurry and go get our kids. The next aftershock hits… the sidewalks and ground are just rolling… car alarms are going off in the parking lots as the ground shakes the cars… people are losing their balance as the ground rolls underneath them. My boss tells us to go – they’ve got this – they’ll let the building manager know – they only live a block away – shouldn’t take them long to get home. People are making calls – we remind them to stay off the phones – text only! Over a hundred people can text in the bandwidth of one call. Save the bandwidth for emergency responder calls!
That was a five minute time span on November 30th, 2018 in Anchorage, AK. The Yakutat plate and a faster moving Pacific plate caused a deep subduction in the Cook Inlet zone. This deep, strike / slip, movement caused what was labeled by some scientists as a mega-thrust event. Buildings collapsed. Roads split apart. Bridges fell. Infrastructure was unstable. But Alaskans are tough. We pulled together. We helped our neighbors.
It was also a good awakening for many people who had not lived through massive earthquakes before. I had been in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake in the San Francisco area – and even then – it was nothing like this one. I had grown complacent. I was not prepared. While everyone should be prepared for an emergency – whether it be a massive earthquake, a tsunami, a wildfire, or even a power outage – when you have a family member with special needs, this takes on even more importance.
Everyone should have an emergency plan and a preparedness kit ready to use. This should include things like:
- Three – four locations to meet (in case one is destroyed):
- One near your home
- One a few blocks away
- One across town
- One out of state
- A flashlight with batteries (store the batteries separately from the flashlight!)
- Charger for your cell phone
- Pencil and waterproof paper for writing notes – pens can freeze or dry out
- A radio – preferably one that is a hand crank so you don’t have to worry about batteries
- A space blanket – these thin, reflective, sheets can keep you warm and double as a reflective surface to signal your location to emergency responders.
- A whistle for signaling to responders
- Seven gallons of water per person ( one gallon per day for seven days)
- A change of clothes
- Hygiene items (toothbrush / paste, diapers, feminine hygiene products, etc)
- Contact info and a pre-set communication plan for someone out of state that is willing to be your contact for letting others know you are safe. This person should be able to tag you on social media so that your friends and family know your status. This allows for internet and cell phone bandwidth to be kept clear for emergency responders use
- Pet food for your animals
- MREs, protein bars, or other easy to fix / eat meals
- Three – five days’ worth of medications, a list of doctors, and a copy of the prescription if possible
Sounds pretty easy, right? But what if you have a child with special needs? Or an elderly parent? That can make those last two especially tricky. There can be issues with textures of flavors or the ability to swallow. Insurance often only covers a certain amount of days of medication – what happens if the earthquake is the last day of your meds, and the pharmacy is shut down? As someone who cares for both a child with special needs and an elderly parent, this is something I have to be aware of. When that child is in school – you also have to provide those things for their emergency bag at school. Now you need even more extra meds – insurance will definitely not cover that… Now what? Now you pray to whatever higher being that you believe in to not have an emergency at the end of a prescription cycle… You pray that the texture issue that they hate today, doesn’t suddenly morph into one that is part of your food in your scram kit. You pray that the only thing that keeps them calm when their routine is disrupted is with them at the time. You pray and you plan…wash, rinse, repeat… And you do the best you can with what you are given.
Sigh, I remember that day all to well. My daughter was in high school, she had just left the library. She was in her next class when she started hearing the locker doors jiggle and slam. She went under her desk before anyone else. My son, special needs, he was on his school bus. Thankfully he was strapped in. He said that the bus was jumping. He has ptsd from it. A slight shake and he is under a table. Myself, I was home getting ready to set up travel. Everything flew, then a loud “POP” no electricity! I managed to get a call to the school, do I need to pick up my child? They weren’t sure what to do…call back. The second roll, my truck was bouncing in the driveway. I had to get to work. I work with special needs adults in a transitional housing. There was no staff. My husband went to grab children, I made it to work and secured two buildings with no electricity, lots of aftershocks and very scared people. That day will forever be etched in my brain.
I was honestly SO glad we had moved by that time. I’ll take a tornado over an earthquake any day!